Locked
by SpaceFace
Summary: Never inclined towards socializing with the other children, we were, almost magnetically, attracted towards each other. Two social outcasts longing for someone to spend time with; we found each other.
1. Cubicle

I own nothing but my own character and her story.

Chapter 1: Cubicle

An ordinary night, filled to the brim with nothingness. I sat, isolated, in my lone cubicle, occupying myself with work. Until recently, I lived in England, at an orphanage. Just 2 months ago I

relocated myself. I am now situated in the Kanto region of Japan. It would be an understatement to say this area is technologically advanced. Everywhere I go, I am surrounded by

flashing city lights and large LCD screens advertising the latest hair product or the hottest teen pop sensation. To say the least, its much different here than it was in my previous home. It

took a few weeks to feel comfortable in this setting but now I can leisurely roam the city streets without gaping in awe at every detail.

The orphanage I mentioned earlier, it was named the Wammy House. I can't tell you much about it or how I came to live there but I can tell you about the people I met. It was one boy in

particular that still makes my heart jump from his impartial memory. From the day I arrived at the establishment to the day he left, we were close. As close as two people could get, we

were practically attached at the hip. He was strange…but so was I. Never inclined towards socializing with the other children, we were, almost magnetically, attracted towards each other.

Two social outcasts longing for someone to spend time with; we found each other.

He had pensive black eyes and jet black hair lazily styled in an unkempt fashion. Often he would reveal to me, and only me, his thin crooked smile that appeared whenever he solved a

riddle or completed a puzzle. And the way he sat, knees tight to his chest, thumb between his teeth, and his eyes as quizzical as those of a new born child. Each of his quirky mannerisms

only intrigued me more. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't explain how I came to be able to leave his side the day he departed from the orphanage. I cant tell you if I cried, if I held on to him

and refused to let go, if I ran after the car as he left. I cant tell you how I reacted, and im not sure it's a memory that I would have wanted to keep. He left me with no memory of his name

or of his existence but he did leave me with a locket. One precious antique locket that I cherish to this day. Upon first glance it is not beautiful, nor is it well crafted, and to anyone else it

would look like a round piece of junk metal on a rusty chain. It is one of those treasures that you need to delve deep into to find its true beauty. Two circular pieces of scratched silver

sandwiched together with a clasp soldered on the left. No inscriptions, no picture inside, but strangely enough, he left something settled between the two pieces of metal. A single strand

of black hair. It most likely belonged to him. After a few years, I stopped wondering about the significance of the strand of hair but I kept it in its place nonetheless. Since his departure,

I've worn the locket every day, morning and night, hoping that it will help me retain his memory in my head. Unfortunately, the locket failed me and to this day, I cant even remember my

own best friends name.

I work for a large Newspaper company in Kanto called the Yamaru Press. I was hired as a journalist only a month ago by the paper's editor, a round man with a creased face by the name

of Hotaru Yana. Already my desk is barely visible under the colorful clutter of paper, pencils, notebooks and other miscellaneous office supplies. Currently, Im scrambling to locate my

cleverly hidden tape recorder that held my most recent interview. Drawers were flying open left and right while I was looking for the inconveniently placed object. If I had remembered that

I left it in my purse _before _I decided to mutilate my work space, the serenity that once filled my cubicle might have still been present. I carelessly rummaged through my unorganized

makeshift purse and grabbed the compact tape recorder. I started into a brisk walk as I made my way through the maze of cubicles. I reached my boss' office and dropped the tape

recorder on his neat desk. He stared with a curious expression at my flustered face and transferred the tape recorder to a randomly selected desk drawer.

_"I wont even ask. Sit down"_

I obeyed the command without hesitation. I plopped myself down into one of the uncomfortable chairs on the opposite side of his desk, turned my attention to his aged eyes, and waited

for further instruction.

_"I have a new assignment that I wanted to present to you personally. Im not sure that you would know of the subject seeing as how you've only been a Japanese inhabitant for, what, 2 _

_months? But, anyway, I like your stuff, you have potential, im giving you a very important story to cover so don't screw around with it. That's all. Im going to put the information on your _

_desk later. Make sure you take it with you before you leave tonight."_

I left his office with my head jumbled from all that was just fed to my brain. I returned to my cubicle and gave no more thought to my new assignment.


	2. Troubled Man

I own nothing but my character and her story.

Chapter 2: A troubled Man

Another day, seated on the black tiled floor of my dark, windowless room. I was hunched over the glowing monitor of my computer, transferring information to a notebook as I scrolled down

the screen. I scribbled noteworthy bits of data every so often but I rarely glanced down at the paper. My profession? Detective, and one of the best. I have no intention of inflating my own

ego when I say so but I am quite confident when I mention that I have quite an influential status known throughout most police forces around the world.I don't have friends or family. I have

Watari and he, alone, is enough. But sometimes my mind wanders back to my days at the orphanage, back to the memory of her. The memory is scant but satisfying. I wish I could remember

more about her but I cant seem to recollect any memory of our time spent together. It was 15 years ago that I left the orphanage. I left her behind, the one person that I ever felt truly

comfortable around. I don't recall what persuaded me to leave her, all I can bring to mind is the chronic ache that I felt in my chest after I saw her face through the tinted glass windows of

the car we drove away in. Recently the image has been haunting my mind and I cant seem to rid myself of the vision. I try not to think about the past but focus on the present. As I

mentioned, I am a world renowned detective and currently I have taken up a case regarding multiple freak deaths all caused by spontaneous heart attacks.

My mind wandered again. Back to the locket. The simple memento I gave her the day before I left. It was nothing special but I wanted her to have something to remember me by. Before I

gave it to her I rolled up a single strand of my hair and taped it to the inside of the locket. No terrestrial being could tell you what possessed me to do this but I did it nonetheless. Perhaps I

wanted her to have a part of me, even if it was something so insignificant as a strand of hair. I cant remember her face when I gave it to her, I cant remember her words or how she was

dressed. Some days it frustrates me that I cant recall anything about someone who was once so close to me.

Im a very troubled man.

(Apologies for the ridiculous shortness of this chapter.)


	3. Uprooted

I own nothing but my character and her story.

Chapter 3: Uprooted

When im not at the office being pounded by my boss im really just your average 22 year old female. Well, at least id like to think so. My physical attributes are nothing outrageous. Long

pale blonde locks cover my head and half of my face, leaving one eye visible. My pale complexion sharply contrasts the dark brown speckles that spread across my cheeks and the bridge of

my nose. My green eyes are average, my nose is average, my mouth…also average. I don't stick out like a sore thumb, not unless you count that im a blonde in a sea of black. One of the

many unsettling perks of living in Japan, pale blonde hair isn't all too natural among the Japanese. Fortunately I don't receive too much grief about it. Maybe a few mildly shrewd remarks

here and there from my boss and sometimes I hear the occasional "foreigner" muttered stealthily as I pass. Its nothing worth thinking about more than I have to.

My wardrobe is…unusual to say the least. Never one for keeping up with the latest trends (or even matching for that matter), I just throw on whatever gets the job done. For instance,

today I sported a blue, argyle sweater vest overtop of a brown collared blouse with black slacks. Not a perfect match, no, but most definitely not as embarrassing as leaving the house

with no clothes at all. Like I said, what gets the job done. Along with my lazily assembled outfits every day I wear the same scuffed up blue sneakers. Classy? Not quite.

My personal life outside of my work place is cluttered, like my cubicle. I live a very cluttered and disorganized lifestyle. I was not raised by a set of parents therefore I was always left to

fend for myself. I left the orphanage when I turned 12. I was given a moderate amount of money to buy a place to stay and to purchase food. Unlike the other children at the orphanage, 5

years was too long for me to stay there, I don't quite remember the extent of my motives but I moved out and bought a small apartment in another town. For 10 years I lived in that

apartment. I had a job helping out at the bakery a few blocks from my place and with the money I earned, I paid for food and other necessary things needed for survival. I never attended

school but I learned everything I needed to know in the duration of my stay at the orphanage. Perhaps I learned even more than was necessary. I was always pushed to work harder, to

exceed my capabilities, to stray from my comfort zone. And so I did. Every day. With the occasional help from my sloppy best friend, I learned. And I learned and I learned. After parting

from the orphanage, I spent hours a day at the public library, reading everything, from Hemmingway to Thoreau, Austen and Dickinson. Fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction,

documentaries, Encyclopedias. I was a literary machine that could not be stopped. My brain grew and grew and kept on growing. Perhaps school would have been unnecessary at that

point, for at 15 years old I had read half of the books at the library. Knowledge was, metaphorically, pouring out of my ears.

After living in my quaint apartment, I moved here, to Japan. I had learned to speak Japanese fluently (along with 5 other languages in my time at the library) and was intrigued by the

country's advanced lifestyle. I also had hoped to pursue my dream of becoming a photojournalist. In addition to writing, I had an artistic eye. I greatly enjoyed drawing and occasionally

sculpting. But what drew me in the most was photography. Simply handling a camera sent chills down my spine. It was, if I may say, love at first touch. After holding a camera, I

immediately concluded that I _had _to have one of my own. So I saved my money until I had just enough to purchase a previously owned manual SLR camera. It was beautiful. I took it

everywhere I went, afraid that if I took my eyes off of it for a second, it would disappear forever. I went wild taking pictures of everything I saw, documenting every moment of my life.

Everything I ate, everything I saw or touched ended up printed on a 4 by 5 and was placed in a shoe box for safe keeping. I, literally, saw the world through the lens of a camera.

So as a teenager, my nose was either buried in a book or situated under the eye piece of my camera. I spent my time working at the bakery, reading, taking pictures, eating, and sleeping.

When I uprooted myself from my cozy little apartment in England, I was 22, my current age. I had saved up for a year or so to purchase a one way plane ticket. I had a very scant amount

of possessions so hiring someone to move my belongings from point A to point B was more than unnecessary. My neighbor, a jolly old woman gave me a large suitcase as a parting gift. I

stuffed all of my clothes, toiletries, and any other item in the suitcase along with a few aging boxes of photographs. Everything else I took in a carryon bag. In a flash, I left England and

set out for Japan. Everything I grew up with, everything I was used to I left in the dust. I was ready for a new adventure and new experiences.

Normally, the stories I was assigned to by my boss were boring. Just flat out _boring._ But this one, this one was different, it was intriguing. It pulled me in deeper and deeper until I could be

pulled in no further. A mysterious person given the alias "Kira" was suspected to have commit countless murders all specifically targeting criminals in various parts of Japan. I had never

been more enthralled in a story than I was with this one. "Kira". Japanese for "killer". How peculiar. I foresaw that I would not be getting a whole lot of sleep this evening, how could I with

a story like this fresh in my mind. Throughout the night, thoughts raced around a one way track in my head.

"_Kira"_

_(My apologies for the lengthy introduction to my character. I sincerely promise that it wont be kept up too much longer)_


End file.
